Sweet and silly, Be Kind Rewind, Michel Gondry’s fourth film (fifth if you count his 2005 documentary, Block Party) recounts the adventures of Mike (Mos Def) and his pal Jerry (Jack Black) as they recreate films from memory. When Mr. Fletcher, owner of the Be Kind Rewind video store, goes away for a week to a Fats Waller convention, he leaves Mike in charge of the store. Unfortunately, after a bizarre accident, Jerry becomes magnetized and consequently demagnetizes the store’s entire collection of VHS tapes (no DVDs here, folks). When number-one customer Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) asks for Ghostbusters, the pair are forced to create their own version from memory (along with help from local laundress Alma (Melonie Diaz)). Miss Falewicz’s nephew and his friends see the bizarre results and must have more, hence the birth of “sweding“–the process of remaking film favorites. The neighborhood citizens go crazy for the sweded films, clamoring for their own favorites to be made. By the end of the film, the entire neighborhood has moved beyond copying other people’s movies. Instead, they make their own film, the (kinda invented) biography of Fats Waller.
Be Kind Rewind is full of goofy fun laughs, and despite its lighthearted tone it never half-asses–or overplays–handling its dominant themes of creativity and community. Jack Black never overdoes it as Jerry, the zany paranoiac, and Mos Def is fantastic as the slightly anxious, slightly slow Mike (his version of Chris Tucker during the sweding of Rush Hour 2 is worth the price of admission alone). Danny Glover plays Mr. Fletcher poignantly, and the character comes to serve as a kind of elegiac totem for the death of highly-specialized local video shops with knowledgeable, cinephile-employees. Be Kind Rewind is a funny, giving film, and never self-indulgent; it moves the viewer without a trace of schmalz. Plus, it never drags. Highly recommended.
Be Kind Rewind is out on DVD today.
Biblioklept 
man, i’m going to have to disagree here. i’ll admit to being overly academic in my film viewings but i thought this was a fair to middling effort at best. i’ll agree that mos def has some natural acting chops that haven’t been fully realized yet, and the tribute to the power of cinema is touching but I felt it was a pretty clunky film otherwise. seemed to be thrown together much like the “sweded” films and lacked the polish of Eternal Sunshine or even the underrated by my standards Human Nature and Science of Sleep. perhaps that’s what Gondry was going for but for me it just didn’t translate well. I feel like he is going in the wrong direction and I hate to see that as he was quite a promising director. if diversion is all you’re looking for, then you could certainly do alot worse, i just wouldn’t recommend it otherwise.
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i’ll respond: no, it’s not eternal sunshine, and yes it is seemingly thrown together–but i loved the slapdash quality, and yes, i thought it was on purpose. this is a movie about loving movies, about creativity and the way that people can work together to bring about a collective vision. i thought it was just as strong as Science of Sleep, which was also slapdash, and better than Human Nature, which is a fun but seriously flawed film. Sure, it’s not Being John Malkovich or Adaptation or I Heart Huckabees or The Squid and the Whale or Margot at the Wedding (the last truly great film I saw), but I think it has a place in the growing canon of these films (I think that in a decade or so, these film makers will be reappraised and given a status similar to that of the Zoetrope directors of the late 60s/early 70s).
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